Spoon talks “Hot Thoughts,” that time they lost their label and why the band is better than ever

For more than 20 years, the band Spoon has been a staple of the indie rock circuit, blending rock, pop and punk. On their new album, “Hot Thoughts,” Rolling Stone says the band “doubles down on beat science.”

“CBS This Morning: Saturday” co-host Anthony Mason sat down with frontman Britt Daniel and guitarist Rob Pope to discuss getting dropped from their first label and why the band is better than it’s ever been.

“Usually, the way it’s mostly worked is, I’m sitting there with a guitar or a piano and I’m coming up with chords and sort of speaking in tongues trying to latch on to something, you know,” Daniel said. He is the group’s songwriter.

“Will you send me one of those speaking in tongues sessions?” Pope joked.

The band comprises Daniel, Pope, drummer Jim Eno and keyboardist Alex Fischel. They formed the band in Austin, Texas, in 1993.

“We were scrappy. We were snotty,” Daniel said. “I wanted to make records.”

Their debut album, “Telephono,” was released in 1996. That landed them a deal with major label, Elektra. But just four months after “A Series of Sneaks” was released in 1998, Spoon was dropped when their representative left the label.

“Our [artists and repertoire] guy was named Ron Laffitte. And so we wrote – somebody suggested these song titles to me: ‘The Agony of Laffitte,’ ‘Laffitte Don’t Fail Me Now.’ And so once we had those titles it was too good not to turn into songs,” Daniel said.

“Yeah, he’s always said the right things in the press since then. I mean he’s, I’m sure he’s a decent dude. Just wasn’t, it wasn’t a good moment for him,” Daniel said of Laffitte. “Worse for us.”

Spoon stayed the course and in 2005, their album “Gimme Fiction” hit No. 1 on the indie chart and their next three albums all cracked the top 10 on the pop charts

“You still believe in albums?” Mason asked.

“Yeah, it makes for the bigger vibe. And you present a whole picture instead of just like, you know, 50 minutes of this guy like baring his soul is cooler than three and a half minutes of it,” Pope said.

“You know, a great song or a great single is, there’s something undeniable about it, but to me the thing that always carried the most weight, the thing that I sort of gauge the value of a band on is their albums,” Daniel said.

Behind their latest, “Hot Thoughts,” Spoon has had one of their busiest touring years ever.